Person, Place, Or Thing
We bought at the bottom of the market but still paid too much for our house, a creaking lemon held together by wood paneling and ancient nests of wiring.
Then, with the piecemeal renovations that we came to think of as the real-estate equivalent of performing organ transplants on ourselves while competing in a triathlon, the waterfall that sprang up in a light fixture after a blizzard, the squirrel that found a long-capped chimney and died in it and took only a few days short of forever to finish decaying, the unsistered roof beams, the toilet older than the plumber who came to give it last rites, the house became a family member like any other, maddening, inconsiderate, expensive, and your best barefoot comfort. It’s just a house, I suppose, and now that we’ve begun to outgrow it — the creature-to-bathroom ratio, don’t you know — I should begin to pull away from it in my heart, replace stories with numbers, businesslike.
Easier said than done when I got married in the yard, under a tree that keeps doubling in size, before D3 made a birdhouse at school and hung it from the branch over the walkway. When I came back from my first date with Dirk, into the downstairs kitchen to report to Gen. “How’d it g–” “HE WAS ON UNSOLVED MYSTERIES.” When, on our second date, Dirk forgot to turn off Broker Voice and informed me while almost falling down the front steps that “these aren’t up to code.”
Stairs, our neighbor has informed us many many times, poured by the guy who poured the concrete for the World Trade Center. Our neighbor used to own our house; his house goes back generations in his family. This house winds through an inherited parcel, chopped up by the assigns of a man named Drake in the 1880s, through a Thos. Seward, inspector of city highways (and his stepson, the improbably poetic Eugene Maker the undertaker), and then an investor who bought the house the day after Mr. S was born, and then our neighbor, and our neighbor’s tenants (a veteran named Mouse; the residents of a large fish tank), to us, our stoop sales and paint chips, the dumbwaiter we never got around to installing, the crawlspace. God, that crawlspace. Is it a requirement that such areas contain at least one (1) rusted spring and one (1) doll part? Whatever fatal set-to occurred between an old mattress and a Betsy Wetsy at the top of this building once upon a time, the jetsam is too creepy to confront. The next owners can clear it out if they’re feeling strong. Maybe they’ll also find the packet of Monopoly money we plastered into a gap in the kitchen wall, as a joke. Maybe we’ll leave them my office door — it didn’t have one, so Dirk had a vintage one shipped from a Midwestern salvage lot, the kind with frosted ripple glass and a flaking porcelain knob. Maybe we’ll take it with us and I’ll finally get “HOMICIDE” lettered onto it like I’ve threatened to for years.
Or maybe the next owners will tear the whole thing down and start over. Maybe they won’t think, like I do, like I wish I didn’t because sentimentality is exhausting, that buildings can have souls of their own, the accumulation of all the stories on all the storeys therein, and the protection of that accumulation. That they won’t become becalmed as I might in 20 Questions in the car, coming back from the last trip of summer, looking out the window in stop-and-go traffic at leaves with a knife edge of yellow or down at my flip-flops with their mealy soles, and it’s my turn to pick something so I pick “home.”
“Person, place, or thing.”
“…Yes?”
(“Is it Don?” Hey, not everything comes to an end. Happy birthday, friend.)
Tags: September 11th
Happy birthday Don. My first stop, as always on this day.
Mine, too. Thinking of all of you.
Happy birthday Don.
Happy birthday, Don.
Happy birthday, Don. And thank you, Sarah.
Happy birthday, Don. Thank you, Sarah, for the words that I come back to year after year.
Happy birthday, Don. Thank you, Sarah.
Thanks again, Sars.
Fifteen years on, and “home” has a new set of meanings? I’m glad. Thank you, Sarah. Happy birthday, Don. Be well, friends.
Happy Birthday, Don.
Happy birthday, Don! And, as always, thank you, Sarah.
Happy Birthday, Don.
Sars, thank you for always writing the right thing on this date.
Happy birthday, Don. I’m glad you’re here to write these stories, Sars.
Thanks for the kind words, as always, everyone. Wishing you all peaceful homey days, whatever that means for you.
Happy birthday, Don.
Happy birthday, Don, and thank you as always, Sarah.
Happy Birthday, Don, wherever you are. And all the ships at sea.
I find myself wanting more — will you move on with Mr. S and Gen and Dirk all together or no?
but I will settle for, happy birthday, Don.
Happy birthday, Don, and thank you.
Happy Birthday, Don. Thank you for helping my friend.
Thank you, Sarah, as always, for your words. Home, indeed.
As always, thinking of that day brings you to mind. Thank you again for another perfectly-worded tribute. Happy birthday, Don.
Happy Birthday, Don. Happy home, Sars.
My first and last stop on this day, always. Thank you Don and thank you Sarah for gathering us here. I continue to sail by your side.
Happy Birthday, Don, from someone who feels mysteriously and stupidly guilty for being grief-stricken afresh every year even though she’s never even friggin’ BEEN to New York.
Thank you, Sarah. And happy brithday, Don.
Thanks Sarah. And happy bday Don.
I’m about an hour late, but HBD Don. I lived I. The East Village back in 2001 and always check in here every year. Thank you.
Stopped by just to say happy birthday, Don, and thank you, ma’am.
Selfishly, I tried to ignore the anniversary; I just couldn’t go there emotionally yesterday. Today, though, I found myself a little sad and out of sorts, and I needed to come here. Sars, your experience is so ingrained in my memories of that day and the days that followed. I’m glad again that you were/are okay, and that you had Don (be he human or angel or something in between) with you. Hugs all around, a day late.
Happy birthday, Don, and big love to you Sars x
Your account, which I first read in 2001, is the very first thing I think of every September 11 when the tributes and the memorials start. And I always come back to TN every year to reread that post and to see if Operation Find Don has finally succeeded. Thanks, Sarah, and happy birthday, Don.
Happy birthday, Don. You’ve done a great job of staying hidden these 15 years .. but look what’s grown around you. “Home”.
Thanks, Don.
Thanks, Sars.
Thank you, Sarah. Happy Birthday Don.
Over the past 15 years, TN was first on my To-Do list on September 11th.
At this point I bypass the other tributes, not because I don’t care, but because the dull ache that begins the moment I awaken gets worse and worse as the day goes on. Watching the TV coverage speeds up the stomachache and headache.
This year, however, I never made it to TN on the 11th.
I’ve been struggling with some really severe health issues during recent months, and my daily To-Do list is wrapped up in little pills and careful planning. Many of my favorite activities have taken a backseat (including watching the Mets).
Then, tonight, I remember: Don.
I hold out hope, Don, that you are out there.
You are the talisman of all possibilities.
Happy Birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sars, for always remembering.
Thanks for coming by! I hope you’re on the mend.